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FAIRBANKS — When Syun-Ichi Akasofu set out to expand research space and capabilities of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute in 1988, he was told it was “a Mission Impossible.”

Two decades later his name is permanently associated with the research center he founded and directed — The International Arctic Research Center, or IARC — and he has achieved a level of success with his work on the project that allows him to look back at that so-called impossible mission and laugh.

“It was my dream when I established IARC that this (type of collaboration) would happen, and it amazes me now,” Akasofu said as he considered the importance of the institute’s 10 year anniversary, officially celebrated Sept. 26.

The building itself stands on the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Campus, bearing Akasofu’s name. What has developed thanks to the building’s construction and the establishment of the research projects it supports is a level of international and scientific collaboration that touches nations around the globe.

Akasofu’s vision

Then director of the Geophysical Institute, Akasofu said the first presentation he gave regarding a potential extension of the Elvey Building, the research center for the GI, was in 1988. There was a rapid increase in the number of scientists and research projects conducted through GI at the time, he recalled, and more space was not only suggested but necessary, he believed. The building would have been the Elvey Extension, and the idea, he said, was a hard sell. Paul Reichardt, who was provost of the university at the time, said he didn’t realize then that IARC would become “one of the most challenging and most interesting projects” he would work on during his tenure as UAF provost.

“There were so many obstacles Syun faced, not the least of which was that this came at a time when the university’s budget was really strapped,” he said.

Part of the answer to that problem was to bring more players to the table, and Akasofu did just that, not only to enhance funding opportunities but also to enhance research capabilities. Thus the Elvey Extension project evolved into the IARC project.

At the time, international scientific partnerships, especially partnerships that intermingled international governments with university establishments, was hardly a common practice. Akasofu battled, he said, hardly wanting to recall the many details involved in those early years of realizing his vision — “There was too much that went on then, I fought a lot,” he said — and he played his political cards well. Seeking financial support from both the U.S. and Japan, he won his victories one at a time. One battle involved the Common Agenda for Cooperation in Global Perspective, which began to take shape in 1993 through discussions between then U.S. President Bill Clinton and Japan Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. The document was aimed at bringing the nations together to address global issues such as health and population, the environment, technology and economic development.

“There were lots of categories included in that (document) and my effort was to try to get a phrase in there that included ‘Arctic research.’ It took a while, but they finally put it in,” Akasofu said.

That Common Agenda “provided the framework for the development of IARC,” he noted, and, thanks to political support from such leaders as Sen. Ted Stevens, Clinton and then Vice President Al Gore, as well as leaders in Japan, a collaboration was initiated, and it was substantial enough to get funding in place for the research facility and get projects underway. That work, Akasofu said, “provides justification for continued collaboration.”

The ground breaking for the building came in July 1995, and in September 1998 the first science-related event — the opening reception of the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting — took place in IARC’s lobby. Akasofu was named founding director on an interim basis in August 1998, and left his position with GI to take over full time as founding director at IARC in July 1999. He retired in 2007, handing the torch to director Larry Hinzman. The two joke now that all the “hard work and battling” is already done.

“I did all the hard stuff and made it easy for him,” Akasofu joked when asked about what it has been like to watch the expansion and growth of his vision.

Calling Akasofu a “humble, non-assuming man,” Reichardt said the hard work and diligence the man showed during those years are a credit to IARC and UAF as a whole.

“There were so many road blocks in his way, and he went over, around or under them all,” he said. “He understands what it is to create a vision and stick with it.”

The funding challenges were not the only roadblocks in Akasofu’s way, Reichardt said. The sheer magnitude of the concept — creating a research establishment that involved collaboration among various nations as well as various types of organizations, including a university and governments — was a challenge in itself. Governments, scientists and educators “speak different languages,” he said, and it was on Akasofu’s shoulders to make those languages meaningful to all the speakers.

“He was the only one at the time that knew and understood both U.S. and Japanese languages and cultures as well as both political and science related issues involved,” Reichardt said.

Akasofu said the challenge he faced at the time was a raw one.

“At that time the knowledge of the Arctic was, ‘Where is it?’” he said. “We had transport flights from Anchorage to Japan and across Europe and all they could do was see the ice. I had to let them know of its importance and it was a hard sell.”

IARC, a decade later

Asked about his current vision and goals for IARC, Akasofu said the most important thing for him is to have achieved his successes as founding director and to have handed the reigns over to another who has insight and direction. He is extremely happy, he said, with the leadership of Hinzman, who took over as director in February 2007. Hinzman’s work at UAF began in 1982, and he worked as a technician, a graduate student, an assistant professor and professor before he became assistant director at IARC in 2006. He was involved with the center throughout his UAF career, he said, and was always impressed with its principles.

“I’ve always liked the concept of bringing together these nations, Japan, Russian, the U.S. and others, and fostering science and taking these steps toward international collaboration with ideas of hope for future collaboration,” Hinzman said. “No one nation can throw enough resources at these problems to make as much headway as we can together.”

Those problems include the basic issues of climate change, now seen so often in the news. Hinzman said collaborative work, largely facilitated through IARC in some way, helped tell the world of the changing climate and its global importance.

“Arctic science has made tremendous leaps in the last decade, and we’ve been a huge part of that. We’ve been able to demonstrate that the Arctic is changing, and demonstrate to the international community, both researchers and government, that the Arctic is important and plays an important role in international science and climate,” he said.

Hinzman and Akasofu noted IARC was an important facilitator in those scientific leaps due to its role in establishing collaboration among nations in a way that government has often failed to do. Through IARC, U.S. researchers have a strong partnership with Russia, for example; Hinzman said scientists from both nations work side-by-side in a way politicians have not been able to do. Thanks to such work, steps such as developing a U.S. oceanography expedition into Russian waters have been possible. He called the “cosmopolitan convocation” of Russians, Japanese, Germans, Chinese, Australians, British, Americans and others a way to “open doors for us all.”

“If we put our heads together, we can see things in different ways, and we’re more likely to catch things we would otherwise have missed,” Hinzman said. “These partnerships have advanced our efforts a lot.”

While Hinzman and his predecessor joke about the hard work being done, both acknowledged there is still much to do. While Hinzman again noted the success of demonstrating the Artic’s importance, he said the next steps are to understand the Arctic climate, and move on to prediction.

“Now that we know the climate is changing, we want to understand what is causing that and understand where the Arctic is going. We need to understand what drives climate change,” he said. “We want to improve capability of predicting and preventing environmental change. That is our main goal.”

Scientific Fruits of Labor

At any given time there are approximately 40 scientists working through IARC from a variety of nations, and Hinzman said the projects and the scientists involved fluctuates constantly. Projects such as developing and perfecting satellite and remote sensory imagery that can offer images of the sea and the sea ice are continually adding to IARC’s list of successes.

“With this technology we get real time analysis of what the sea ice looks like, with information coming in every day,” Hinzman said, pointing at satellite imagery and computer-generated line graphs produced from a collaborative Japan-U.S. project.

The system reveals, for example, the fact the world has experienced both the second highest level of sea ice and the second lowest level yet recorded just this year.

Another project revealed the existence of a large, deep plume of warm water, which moved into the Arctic from the Atlantic Ocean. Teams of scientists worked together to track the plume’s migration around the Artic, initially believing it was too deep to have any impact on sea ice melting. After years of study, however, they learned they were wrong.

“Last year we demonstrated this water did extend warmth to upper layers (of the ocean) and is contributing to the loss of sea ice,” Hinzman said. “Without this international collaboration and study, we would not have understood. That was not an expected mechanism for loss of ice.”

Benefits of satellite imagery extend beyond Arctic study, Hinzman noted. Using such data and images of air temperatures and other climate conditions, scientists can help predict the birth and pattern of forest fires, which have a huge impact on Arctic climate.

Hinzman also noted the value of educational opportunities offered to graduate and doctoral students through various IARC programs, specifically the summer program that brings students and scientists from across the U.S. to the sea ice they’ve studied but never seen.

“Students from the Lower 48 have never even walked on the Tundra, let alone witnessed the actual Arctic they’ve been analyzing through study,” Akasofu said. “This helps them understand the integrated system of the Arctic, and it helps them develop collaborations and partnerships that can help them later in their careers.”

IARC: The Next 10 Years

The Arctic is changing, it is very complex, and it is necessary to identify each cause and find a way to adapt based on those causes.

Hinzman said that is the challenging goal on the horizon for IARC. Akasofu said his goal for the future is to see the center “become a teenager.” The two continued to credit the importance of collaboration with various international entities, describing the development of research organizations strongly married to IARC: Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Japan Arctic Remote Sensing Group, National Science Foundation, IARC-JAXA Information System, and others. Hinzman said it is significant to facilitate relationships between science and politics through these partnerships to help develop policies based on sound science and “continue to make huge advancements that any single entity could not have achieved individually.”

On the homefront, Hinzman said such advancements are important locally as well as globally.

“It is something for the university to be proud of, and the state of Alaska. These projects are helping the state understand the changes that are happening here and help plan for changes that are happening and will happen,” Hinzman said.

Reichardt, who said he continues to be impressed with IARC’s role in international science, said the dynamic nature of the center is vital to its future.

“The real key has been to maintain commitment to involve a wide range of people and disciplines. They are really trying to make it into an international effort and make science available to all relevant disciplines,” he said.

Continuing to offer increased access to the Arctic is a basic-level benefit to nations such as China, Japan and others, Hinzman said, and will help continue IARC’s path of success, set in motion by Akasofu’s inability to believe his vision was impossible.

“IARC is an amazing example of what the right person can do when they have a vision and goal,” Reichardt said of Akasofu’s success.

Contact Features Editor Erica Goff at 459-7523.